A Ray of Hope

British artists ‘olly and suzi’ highlight the plight of the manta ray and whale sharks

We all love the manta ray. This beautiful creature, so graceful and peaceful in its natural habitat, is one of the great sights of our oceans. But the manta ray is one of a number of species that is threatened by extinction. If we are to save these remarkable animals from extinction we need to highlight their plight.  British artists ‘olly and suzi’ visited Soneva Fushi in July to do exactly that. Since 1993 they have taken part in more than 50 expeditions to remote regions of the earth to paint predators and their prey at close proximity, before exhibiting their collaborative work in galleries such as the Simon Dickinson

Gallery in New York, and the Natural History

Museum in London.

Working closely with the marine biologist and Soleni Dive Centre, ‘olly and suzi’ painted the manta rays, as part of their campaign to highlight the plight of such threatened animals. They have visited the North Pole to paint polar bears, South Africa to paint great white sharks, the Galapagos to paint whale sharks, Africa to paint wild dogs, Cayman Islands to paint sting rays… and now Maldives to paint manta rays.   This was no normal painting –they actually painted the manta rays whilst underwater.

During their stay, ‘olly and suzi’ visited neighboring island Maalhos to teach high school students about the plight of manta rays, and how to work collaboratively, using nature to create some incredible art work.

Producer of “End of the Line” and cofounder of Blue Marine Foundation George Duffield accompanied ‘olly and suzi’ to photo document their journey and to produce images for their campaign to highlight the plight of these threatened animals.

The artwork will be exhibited in 2012 and 30% of the sales will be given to Blue Marine Foundation, a new charity formed by a group of influential individuals, brands and organisations to protect the world's oceans through the establishment of a global network of marine reserves. Six Senses' Maldivian resorts – Soneva Fushi, Soneva Gili and recently launched Six Senses Laamu – are sponsoring the foundation for the next three years.

Permaculture Workshop

Fun was had by farmers and teachers of the nearby island of Kihaadhoo when Mark Garrett Soneva Fushi’s Permaculturist launched the first hands on permaculture workshop.  This workshop was first in an ongoing training program to assist the island community in developing their agricultural plots through the use of permaculture principles and techniques, with the ultimate aim of enabling a reliable crop, fit for supply to nearby resorts and providing a good, reliable income for the islanders. 

 

EcoCare Soneva Nature Trip

Environment Day 2011 

Imagine one of the most densely populated capitals in the world. Visualise the traffic on its streets, the exhaust-laden air, the colour of cement. Picture that this place is surrounded by one of the most stunning sceneries including coral reefs, sandy beaches and lush ve­getation. And imagine that many of its school children have never had the chance to enjoy and appreciate this beauty. In collaboration with a local NGO, Eco-Care, Soneva Fushi organises and funds an annual environmental awareness week, to give around 70 of these school children the opportunity to learn about nature and sustainability.



This year was a huge success, with the children learning about the importance of fish to coral reef ecosystems whilst snorkeling on the house reef, learning about permaculture, sustainabililty and even astronomy.

The trip to Hanifaru Bay on World Environment Day, June 5^th, was an incredible success.  For the first time since the Soneva Nature Trip began in 2000, the children had the opportunity to get in the water and swim with manta rays. An amazing 66 out of the 72 children had this up close encounter with these gentle giants.

Leadership for a Low Carbon World

Jonathon Porritt, the Founder Director of Forum for the Future, award winning author and a non-executive director of Wessex Water, was a spokesperson at the Six Senses Eco Symposium (2010) here at Soneva Fushi.  He warned that government inaction in the face of climate change will have a huge impact on the valuation of energy companies such as BP and Shell, saying that panic measure to halt the advance of climate change would mean that energy companies would never be able to exploit up to 75% of their proven reserves.

He said: “It is likely that governments around the world will do the minimum for the longest period of time possible when it comes to fighting climate change. When the impact of global warning becomes even more obvious, they will take panic measures. From an investment manager’s point of view, that is the worst possible scenario.

“It will obviously have a huge impact on the values of investment portfolios around the world because the carbon industries will never be able to exploit their proven reserves on which their valuations are based.”  Mr. Porritt added that the crash in the value of oil and gas companies would have a similar or greater impact on global markets than the credit crunch of 2007.

President Nasheed of the Maldives, who was also speaking at the Exco Symposium, said: “We have a very short window of opportunity. We already have serious issues with coastal erosion. We have 16 islands where we are already relocating people… and increasingly the water table is being contaminated by seawater.”

He added that dwindling tuna stocks was also posing a threat to the Maldives food security.

End of the Line Premier in Male'

The End of the Line is a powerful, award winning documentary about one of the world's most disturbing problems - over-fishing. “Overfishing was recognised as one of the world's greatest and most immediate environmental problems in 2002, when it was first demonstrated that global catches of wild fish had peaked around 1989 and have since been in decline” says Charles Clover, author of the End of the Line.  Globally, some 75 per cent of wild marine fish are now said to be either fully-exploited or overfished, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (UN FAO). That means these species require conservation and management in order to survive in their present numbers - which they rarely receive.

As the UK’s The Times newspaper commented, “The End of the Line should do for our oceans what An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change – that is, stamp the issue into the public consciousness and shame governments around the world into at least talking about doing something”. 

Sonu Shivdasani, founder of Six Senses Resorts organised a screening of this emotive documentary “The End of the Line” in one of the most appropriate places in the world, Male’. He was joined Vice President Mohamed Waheed and the film’s Executive Producer, Chris Gorell-Barnes. It was the first time “The End of the Line” has ever been screened in South Asia.  The audience included dignitaries, members of the tourism industry and members of the fishing industry, who applauded at the end of the screening. 

Can you imagine a world without fish?

 

www.endoftheline.com

Six Senses pledges to support BLUE with share of diving revenues

Six Senses has pledged to support marine conservation after signing a deal with BLUE to give a share of revenues from guest diving excursions at its Maldives retreats to the foundation.

With the world's oceans facing unprecedented pressure, the Blue Marine Foundation has been set up to fund the creation of a global network of marine reserves and to provide private sector solutions for the sea.  It is a huge and complicated task, requiring social and political engagement together with signifcant resourcing. Blue Marine Foundation is an innovative, market-based solution that will work to raise vital revenue need to protect the seas and with them, our future -it is a facilitator and amplifier for existing conservation organisations.

A UK charity, BLUE's aim is to generate finds through a licensing and branding model and distribute them to organisations that meet our strict objectives of critical marine conservation -raising area of ocean under protection, halting biodiversity decline and restoring ocean productivity.

The Six Senses Eco Symposium in 2010 at Soneva Fushi created a rallying cry to invest more in preserving fish stocks. Chris Gorrell Barnes, co-founder of Blue Marine Foundation, revealed only 0.6% of the world's oceans are protected, "the rest can be fished until they are empty", he said, adding that "if we go on at the same rate then the oceans will be empty f fish by 2050."

BLUE is currently in talks with the Government of the Maldives about improving sustainable fishing practices in the Maldives.

As Sonu states “unless we protect our oceans now, fish stocks will suffer an irreversible collapse.”

http://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/

Soneva Fushi: a resting place on the world's longest migration

Charles Anderson, a British marine biologist working and living in the Maldives for 26 years, reports on how him noticing the sudden emergence of dragonflies in the Maldives at certain times of the year led him to discover the world's longest migratory journey taken by any insect. It is a truly riveting story of curiosity and scientific discovery.

Each year, millions of dragonflies arrive in the Maldives, an event which is well known to people living there. But no one knew where they came from. Their appearance is especially peculiar because the 1200 islands that make up the Maldives lie 500 to 1000km from the mainland of southern India, and all are coral cays with almost no surface freshwater, which dragonflies need to complete their lifecycle. Anderson noticed the dragonflies after he first arrived in the Maldives in 1983. He started keeping detailed records each year from 1996 and now collates data collected by local observers at other localities in the Maldives, in India and on vessels at sea.

When Anderson compared these observations with those in southern India, he found a clear progression of arrival dates from north to south, with dragonflies arriving first in southern India, then in the Republic of Maldives' capital Male, and then on more southern atolls. Each year, dragonflies first appear in Male between 4 and 23 October, with numbers peaking in November and December, before the insects then disappear once more. The insects arrive in waves, with each staying for no more than a few days.

Over 98% of the dragonflies recorded on the islands are Globe skimmers (Pantala flavescens), but Pale-spotted emperors (Anax guttatus), Vagrant emperors (A. ephippiger), Twisters (Tholymis tillarga) and Blue perchers (Diplacodes trivialis) also appear in some numbers. The dragonflies then reappear between April and June.

Longest journey
The dragonflies are clearly migrating from India across the open sea to the Maldives, says Anderson. "That by itself is fairly amazing, as it involves a journey of 600 to 800km across the ocean," he says. Quite how they do it was a bit of a mystery, as in October they appear to be flying against the prevailing winds. However, in October, and continuing into November and December, a weather system called the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone moves southwards over the Maldives. Ahead of the ITCZ the wind blows towards India, but above and behind it the winds blow from India. So it seems that the dragonflies are able to reach Maldives by flying on these winds at altitude above 1000m.

Record breakers
The species involved breeds in temporary rainwater pools. So it is following the rains, taking sequential advantage of the monsoon rains of India, the short rains of East Africa, the summer rains of southern Africa, the long rains of East Africa, and then back to India for the next monsoon – an epic migration of 14,000 to 18,000km.

It may seem remarkable that such a massive migration has gone unnoticed until now. But this just illustrates how little we still know about the natural world. The monarch butterfly is often cited as having the longest migration of any insect, covering around 7000km in an annual round trip from Mexico to southern Canada. On average, it takes four generations of butterflies to complete the journey. Anderson believes that the dragonflies survive the ocean flights by gliding on the winds, feeding on other small insects. They too, take four generations to make the full round trip each year.

Anderson has noted the migratory paths of a number of insect-eating bird species, including cuckoos, nightjars, falcons and bee-eaters, follow that of the dragonfly migration, from southern India to their wintering grounds in Africa. That suggests the birds feed on the dragonflies as they travel.